reminder: Defence & Freedom now has a twitter feed that mostly announces new blog posts.
https://twitter.com/DefenceFreedom
Feel free to follow it, and share/retweet whatever you think is worthy!
I don't expect to become huge in follower count, but reaching more people who would enjoy the blog's content, maybe contribute facts in the comments or become inspired would be a good thing.
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tanknology.co.uk/post/russian-turret-cages
They're improvising like Daesh, this signals very little confidence in their tanks.
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This may be due to too little driver training (allocated diesel sold on black market by officers), due to defective or absence of night driving aids, technical failures during movement and also due to crews not wanting to drive into battle.The amount of Russian armour that keeps falling off bridges or into ditches is just staggering 🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/Bz6ixJmQEG
— Oryx (@oryxspioenkop) March 4, 2022
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At least (AFAIK) the U.S. stopped delivering munitions to the sandy kleptocrat state after the globe-fondling lying moron was kicked out of office.
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This could be an alternative to skis (many ski troops also carry snowshoes, especially in mountainous settings).
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I mentioned this before:
/2014/12/the-stummelwerfer-and-2b25.html
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https://www.swebor.se/what-is-armour-steel/
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"How the SEALs failed America"
theintercept.com/2022/02/22/navy-seals-code-over-country-matthew-cole/
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This could be hugely consequential:
1) Main Battle Tanks and other tracked vehicles are not good for long-range deployments by road
2) Rail traffic is unreliable if the alliance is under attack (especially railroad bridges)
3) Dedicated tank transporters are extra-strong (torque, hp) semi-trailer tractors with dedicated trailers
4) We could purchase dedicated powered trailers at lesser cost (and thus many more!) than small production run tank transporter tractors
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bbc.com/news/world-europe-60600487
This gives me flashbacks from stories of people who chose to deny the reality about a pandemic to the(ir) bitter end.
We need a renaissance of attention to reality and the scientific principle that you have to accept proven stuff, and a turn away from propaganda and fantasyland.
This includes a reckoning about mistakes made in the past. We have come to grips with
- the lies that led to the Kosovo Air War 1999
- the Iraq invasion 2003 with months-long barrage of "WMD" lies
- the approx. 15-year long denial of how badly the Afghanistan war goes
- American torture campaign
- trigger happiness in occupation wars
- two decades of hatemongering and discrimination against Arabs and Muslims (depending on country, more or les severe)
- many Western "special forces" being infested with war criminals and Fascists
- why certain countries / regions are not all that friendly to us Westerners and Americans in particular
And yes, there are also some things the left wing / greens would not like to talk about, but that should be talked about.
- excesses of certain emancipation movements
- new nuclear powerplants being too expensive, but existing nuclear powerplants are almost climate-neutral and don't kill many people (so far)
- greens preaching peace and wanting to leave NATO when not in power, but turning pro military intervention / arms donations within months of being in power
- evident inability to solve problems on part of establishment (moderate left to moderate right) parties
- erosion of division of powers: The cabinet is ruling Germany. The legislative branch only nods off what the cabinet proposes for legislation and the politicians also have undue influence on the judicial branch
- all parties letting the rich and banks very largely get away with theft, fraud, tax evasion - even the supposed left-wing social democrats
- de facto corruption by politicians with highly suspicious side incomes (being a member of parliament is an exhausting 60 hours per week job if you do it right, how can members of parliament also be ministers, work for millions as lawyers, be in supervisory boards of government-controlled stock companies?)
OK, this got a bit long for a quick comment below a link.
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twitter.com/507stre/status/1494445791318097925
twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1420965495713505282
Please note it has a railroad! I have never seen anything like it in the West, not even this mentioned in Jane's Military Vehicles and Logistics (the issue on my shelf is 17 years old because only old used copies are affordable for private persons).
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fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2022/02/a-short-history-of-public-borrowing-for-wars/
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navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/02/france-unveils-new-seabed-warfare-strategy/
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Foreign policy by and for idiots.
The South Korea trade deal was a scam as well (it raised import quota that weren't fully used before).
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apnews.com/article/congress-cia-ron-wyden-martin-heinrich-europe-565878d7299748551a34af0d3543d769
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voxeu.org/article/why-military-purchasing-power-parity-matters
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defence-blog.com/new-french-armys-video-shows-jaguar-armored-vehicle-in-action/
ridiculous
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https://wavellroom.com/2022/02/04/why-europe-can-fend-for-itself/
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https://kamazexport.com/truck/kamaz-6560/
https://kamazexport.com/truck/kamaz-4326/
Their newest vehicle types are excellent. Performance still depends on the users and supply, though.
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http://cast.ru/files/The_Tanks_of_August_sm_eng.pdf
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defence-blog.com/rheinmetall-unveils-new-light-tank/
[German] esut.de/2022/02/meldungen/32519/lynx-familie-waechst-um-die-feuerunterstuetzungsvariante-lynx-120/
More about that later, probably. Much distraction is going on.
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It handles containers AND pallets and presumably it can also pull a pallet out of a container, so it's the answer to many logistical challenges.
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(edited in on Sunday:)
War of words, songs and bombs: Russian offices struggle to communicate attack plans on short-wave radio, while Ukraine jams them with... their national anthem. Shivers. pic.twitter.com/B6dcQTE1Qm
— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 5, 2022
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https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/
I mentioned this before, worth a read.
S O
This could be hugely consequential:
ReplyDelete3) Dedicated tank transporters are extra-strong (torque, hp) semi-trailer tractors with dedicated trailers
One might even shift the (single) gearing for a relative low velocity range to optimize it for military use while sacrificing energy recovery efficiency.
In fact I think we might have also some civilian cases for it.
4) We could purchase dedicated powered trailers at lesser cost (and thus many more!) than small production run tank transporter tractors
Agreed. There should also be some real world offorad tests about eAxles by now.
Obviously the battery comes at a weighty price (no pun intended) but there will be attractive choices along the battery size spectrum.
Heck stopping and charging the battery by idling is grossly inefficient but very effective.
Firn
I believe an ordinary diesel engine would work for a powered trailer as well. Going hybrid should make it more responsive, but likely not more responsive on long marches.
DeleteA powered trailer makes a wide range of semi trailer tractors viable for hauling a MBT (or two IFVs), which is what really matters.
To sum it up:
Delete1) Fully electric tractor might creep into the civilian world in which case a powered trailer without the battery is more cost attractive.
2) Hybrid tractor with say a 20Wh battery seemed to me for the last ten years an interesting solutions. Enables last miles movement and resting without too much noise and less heat. I think we could get away with a battery on the trailer.
3) Old school diesel tractor plus powered, self-contained trailer makes still a lot of sense in your specific case as tank transport.
Firn
I would use only a quite small battery on the trailer and add a "range extender" (auxilary diesel generator) either on the trailer or truck...
DeleteOne would get the best of two worlds IMHO, the attractive torque of the electric solution plus energy density/logistic simplicity of the diesel variant.
Surprising that there wasn't any broad discussion about the huge advantages for Ukraine of shifting millions of civilians into safe environments further West. Means long-term resilience among others.
ReplyDeleteEfficient evacuation of civilians should have been one of the most pressing issues for the Ukrainians and easily the best way to prevent unnecessary suffering. In short civilians out and supplies in. Sadly the experiences from Syrian and WWII come in very handy.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Breaking-Aleppo_English.pdf
Firn
Evacuating civilians is like ethnic cleansing done for, not by, the invader. The invader could hold a referendum about secession and would easily win it with his preferred demographic still in the region and the other demographic being evacuated and largely unable to vote.
DeleteIn short; sometimes you need to stay in a warzone to keep your home.
That is true unless it is temporary thanks to a military victory. I still think those chances are high.
DeleteStill WWII and what happened in the two Russian proxy states tell of that danger.
If the latter are any guide there won't be a big influx of people feeling Russian even with defeat. With low fertility there is no population pool available for economic wastelands.
Firn
The military PPP factor of expenditures is interesting. Without out a lot of powers might be underestimated.
ReplyDeleteI wonder about India and China, who both have much goodwill for Russia and seem to rather agree with their version of events. How do you estimate the chances that they factor into this by supplying Russia and/or circumventing sanctions up to joining the fray?
Would Russia with its ongoing mobilization be capable of taking on the Baltics in addition to Ukraine or would it require them to finish this operation first and then start the next war?
S.O.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to your answer from another post here in the blog as i can not post it there for unknown reasons:
It's just irrational and primitive to you because it goes against your feelings and your political agenda and ideology.
One of the key lessons of the current war should be never underestimate the enemy. So I think your statement that the tsar is without clothes is quite risky. Furthermore, rearmament should by no means be aimed at just one possible scenario, and that's what it does in your case. You've been conspicuously concentrating on the Russians as the only possible opponent for years.
And 2% of GDP is actually quite moderate and also less economically burdensome than you always portray here. The state, for example, wastes vast amounts of money in the social sector, where it brings just as little or a lot economically, while the defense budget is simply nothing. In return, one promotes technological development, collects taxes, generates export successes and generates income. Your personal uneasiness about military armor is therefore irrational from this point of view.
But regardless of that, I can of course definitely agree with the following sentence of yours: It's always a good time to cut nonsense and improve the efficiency of armed services.
That's exactly how it is. And that is exactly what needs to be done anyway.
Yes, I focus on the Russians as only serious threat becuase they are the only serious threat.
Delete2nd ranked hypothetical threat is Americans turned Fascist. This means F-35 purchase is idiotic, we should get American backdoor software out of our economy and more attention on air/sea strike packages.
3rd ranked hypothetical threat is PRC, but only together with Russians. PRC military hardware is very similar to Russian capabilities.
For now the Russian threat is the only justification for a high level of military spending.
Economic research does not show that military spending in any way promotes prosperity more than social expenditures do. There's evidence that the latter does help prosperity a lot in the long run, while the former does a little for scientific progress and fighting youth unemployment. You appear to be delusional about the economic effects of military spending.
"the defense budget is simply nothing"
Germany had the 7th highest military expenditures in 2020. Subtract corruption from military spending and we are on 3rd, 4th or 5th place.
So either you're a brazen LIAR for coming to this place and make such a false statement, a BULLSHITTER who claims something without spending one minute to look it up or you're DELUSIONAL.
The defense budget is simply nothing was a statment in a longer sentence about the defence budget in comparison to the social sector budget.
ReplyDeleteMore than 33 % of the BIP is used for the social sector. Thats an fact. And 2 % of the BIP is much much fewer, it is simply nothing in comparison to the 33,6% of the BIP alone in 2020 which was used in the social sector.
I also find it very strange how quickly you react with insults and personal attacks to every statement that does not fit your political ideology. You can attack the matter as hard as you want, but far too often in your blog there are personal attacks that are either borderline, or that would already be justiciable and could be prosecuted.
So I didn't make a false statement, because the fact is that 2% of GDP is nothing compared to around 34% of GDP and for this reason it is very inappropriate to use the terms LIAR and BULLSHITTER.
Conversely: I won't write what I think of you personally.
The social spending is irrelevant. This isn't some length contest between budgets.
DeleteMilitary spending is unproductive spending. It's meant to protect, and once you've spent enough to achieve that protection any further spending on protection is a waste of resources.
The claim that the German defence budget "is simply nothing" is a lie or bullshitting or delusional, period. The liar's opinion about him being called out is not of interest. Anyone can see the evidence. Our military spending is amongst the biggest worldwide. Facts do matter, delusions and feelings don't.